Paleo for the average Jane

Crab salad stuffed mushrooms

I love me some football. I LOVE football. I’m a Patriots fan, through and through, but I am currently living in Baltimore, Ravens territory. I’ll give the people around here this: they are DEVOTED to the teams around here. It’s actually kind of admirable. Anyway, game days require delicious eats, so this week is going to be devoted to delicious eats perfect for the big game! Today, stuffed mushrooms. These little beauties (okay, maybe they are so ugly they are cute…) are perfect. They are roasted mushrooms, filled with a refreshing crab salad, topped with a crunchy topping. Seems strange, yes, but it is beyond yummy. Oh yeah, and GO PATS!

OH! Another note: This makes enough stuffing for 2 pounds of mushrooms. Either make 2 pounds of stuffed mushrooms, or the other option is to leave the mushroom stems out of the filling and make 1 lb of mushrooms and taking a bunch of cherry tomatoes, hollowing out the seeds and stuffing them with the other half. (For any non mushroom lovers.) Or, you could just half the amount. Or just use the leftover filling in lettuce cups. Whatever!

– coconut milk (either put a can in the fridge to separate, and drain off the water, or filter the water out)

– bunch of crab

– 3 TBS coconut milk

– 3/4 c cashews, ground up (I used a spice grinder, but a food processor would be fine)

Wipe all the mushrooms down, and separate the caps from the stems. Toss the caps with some oil, salt, and pepper. Line them up in a baking dish, and throw them into the oven at 350 degrees, and cook them for about an hour. Yum! Roasted mushrooms!

Chop up the stems and the garlic, and toss them with a very small amount of oil (I just used the same bowl I tossed the caps in, and used the residual oil, salt, and pepper that was left in there) and some seasoning.

Throw the stems and garlic into a frying pan, and start cooking them, stirring every once in a while…

Until they are golden brown and delicious. Turn the heat off, and let the stems cool down to room temp.

Take the avocado, cut it in half, remove the pit, and scoop the flesh out of the peel. Chop that baby up!

Add the juice of one lemon…

The cucumber and dill…

And the cooled down stems and garlic. Combine the whole mess, and let all those super tasty flavors combine together into awesomeness.

To make the delicious tasty topping, mix together the ground cashews, and the coconut flour.

Throw in some salt and pepper, and add a drizzle of oil, until it looks clumpy and crumbly.

Toss the whole thing into the oven that the mushrooms are cooking in. Keep a close eye on the mixture, so it doesn’t burn.

Let this cool off as well. When touched, it’ll feel a little weirdly soggy, but it will add a tasty nutty crunch when atop the mushrooms. Trust in me!

Take the mushroom caps out of the oven, and let those cool down as well. This whole thing is served at room temp, which makes them even better for a party or game.

Now for the final steps of the filling. Take half a can of the coconut milk solids, and whip it up a touch, to make it easy to work with.

Add the crab. Make sure to feel through the crab to make sure there is no cartilage in there, and mix it in with the coconut milk.

Then, add the cucumber/avocado mixture and mix the whole thing. Taste it, and adjust anything that is needed. I added another half a lemon worth of juice, and a little more salt.

Time for assembly! Grab a mushroom cap, throw a spoonful of the salad in there, and then sprinkle the top with some of the crumble. One of the really, REALLY great parts of this, if you can’t tell already, is that everything can be done ahead of time. Just stick all the bits into the fridge, and when ready to serve, let the mushrooms come back up to room temp, and stuff them full!